The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1887-05-24

selves from being eaten. Their food
consists mainly of flies and the smaller
insects of the air.
There is about the same appearance
of reason for the statement that cha
meleons live. on air that there is for
the story that they partly hide them
selves by making their color conform
to that of the substance next to them.
Certainly they do make tremendous
show of devouring air. Some OF the
African and South American varieties
initiate themselves clear to the tips of
their tails. so that their shape is some
what like that of q kid-glove finger
blown up. But the Florida chameleons
do not put ON such airs When they
are inflated, they simply look as though
their tonsils were badly swollen. Why
the chameleons of the tropics initiate
themselves in such an e1travagant way
nobody knows. Perhaps it is precau-
ton against getting bruised. if they
should fall while doing so much climb
ing around.
But, although there is no basis for
the two most extraordinary claims
made in their behalf-claims so extra
ordinary that if they justly could be
made with respect, even to so high a
creature as man, they would make him
a vastly more interesting object than
he is-chameleons are looked upon
with a good deal of curiosity by
strangers visiting in the lands where
they live. Boys and girls soon learn
from the young natives how to make
pets of them, and keep them supplied
with tiny bright-colored neck-ribbons,
both for the purpose of adornment and
Identification.
A chameleon will stay all winter on
a sunny window If treated with proper
consideration; and there is where he
shows his good sense, for he can sleep
with both eyes shut, and need not be
continually on the lookout for black.
snakes, lizards and other murderous
monsters.
Occasionally Northern girl so far
overcomes her innate prejudice against
things reptile-formed that she adorns
her hair with a tiny acknowledged
chameleon, held with thread of gold,
after the manner of far-Southern bellies.
AS is often the case with creatures
that are very timid with respect to
others, chameleons are desperate fight
ers among themselves.
On a bluff overlooking the st. John s
river is a deserted shanty, built and
abandoned by a man who entertained
and dismissed the notion of becoming
an ''orange king" Chameleons have
taken possession of it, and their noise
less occupancy is in harmony with the
quietness that has prevailed since its
builder departed.
One day in June a tiny chameleon
looked down from beam and spied
another tiny chameleon looking up
from the floor. The two little Great
ures eyed each other for ten minutes
without moving even so much as the
muscles that tip up their scales and
change their color. Then each darted
toward the other for the distance of,
may be, foot, and there was another
wait. 1t took them half an hour to
come together, but when they came it
was with wide-open jaws.
1t was to be catch-as-catch-ean COM
bat, and their first hold was meant to
last. They locked jaws, and remained
apparently as motionless as i'm the in
tervals when they were cycling each
other from distance; but soc the tiny
muscles in their neck began to throb,
and the thin skin on their sides began
to rise and fall with their quick heart
beats.
A ray of sunlight fell upon them
from the opposite side, and as the blood
shows red in the fingers of hand held
before candles flame, so did their
blood show pink through their almost
transparent sides.
The battle grew more desperate; the
throbbing of the tiny muscles became
stronger; the heart-bests became faster
than the ticking of watch; the pink
blood seemed to boil. Then, just as
the sparkle in their brown eyes began
to die out, a stranger, who had
been watching the battle, took the two
small combatants in his hand, and in
their fright they loosed their deadly
hold.
For moment they lay painting in his
palm, and then they leaped to the side
of the shanty and disappeared in oppo.
site direotions.-E. M. Resoey, in Gold
en- Days.
Price of Tobacco in i649.
Some one asserted that the common